


The Liberation of Hub World

by Notsalony



Series: Hub World [1]
Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: AU, Alpha!Noah, Alternate Realities, Androids, Droid!Alison, Droid!Liam, Duplicants, F/M, Gay!Liam, M/M, Magic!Isaac, Magic!Stiles, Master Tech, Multi, Multiverse, Other, Robots, Vampire!Scott, gay!Stiles, human!Isaac, plot heavy, territories
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-07-20
Updated: 2021-01-02
Packaged: 2021-03-05 06:14:28
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 6,746
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25399741
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Notsalony/pseuds/Notsalony
Summary: How do you know if you’re real?  How do you know your reality is reality?  These are the questions that get asked at two in the morning some mornings.  Especially by people who can’t explain why they feel wrong about the universe.
Relationships: Isaac Lahey/Alison Argent, Liam Dunbar/Stiles Stilinski
Series: Hub World [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1839598
Comments: 2
Kudos: 12





	1. Bodies

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [The Enslavement of Scott McCall](https://archiveofourown.org/works/1000139) by [ract46](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ract46/pseuds/ract46). 



> This is a spin off of the Lobo Series and the Master Tech Stories where I start to weave the narrative into a cohesive background.

Map of the Local Multiverse

* * *

|    
  
  
---  
  
**_SPLAT_**  
  
Everyone on the street jumped back. No one had seen where he came from, but from the way he landed flat on his back they were relatively sure he’d fallen. A few curious glances up on the street with relatively short buildings said there was nothing that should have hosted a place for a body to fall like that from. Confusion started to spread like wildfire before panic gripped the people and they took off running in all directions, screams drowning out everything else as they hurried through the wet streets and the early morning rain to get away from the mysterious dead body.  
  
An hour later, the police had made their way through the panicked crowd, their statements all taken down and the Sheriff had made his way to the body that was cordoned off from anyone looking for information about the body or the mysterious man who appeared from the sky. Though as he looked at the young form, it wasn’t an adult male, no it was the body of a child, or more aptly put a teenager.  
  
That just made it harder. No one liked going to a crime scene where there was a dead kid. It ate at you in a special way. So he crouched down and took in the details. Caucasian teen male, little over five foot tall, barefoot, wearing pajama bottoms and a loose long sleeve night shirt. His hair had been dry but it was soaked to the corpse from the rain this morning. He frowned, how did a kid who was clearly getting ready for bed fall out of the sky hard enough that his body cracked the pavement under him?  
  
There were stress lines and fractures all around the body indicating where it impacted, but not a mark on the kid. He frowned, using his gloved hand to turn the kid towards him his blood ran cold. He was looking at a corpse that couldn’t possibly be. Stumbling back in the wet he crab walked back till his back hit a building and he fumbled for his phone dropping it twice before he managed to pick it up with numb fingers. He dialed a number and waited.  
  
“what?” Stiles yawned into his phone, not happy to be awakened just after dawn.  
  
“Liam’s still at the house with you, right?” Noah was looking way too wide eyed at the corpse in front of him.  
  
“He’s next to me in bed… why? “ Stiles was already going into inquisitive mode.  
  
“Because I got called out this morning to a crime scene and I’m looking at Liam’s dead body.”  
  
“That’s not possible.” Stiles was moving, probably checking Liam’s pulse and making sure he was alive and well.  
  
“The corpse laying in the middle of the street says it is.” Noah’s voice was shaking. It wasn’t often you see the very dead body of your son-in-law laying in the middle of the street miles from where he was living under your roof.  
  
“Can you get the body down to the clinic?” Stiles was already making plans.  
  
“I think so. It’s weird enough that they’re not going to give me any flack for taking it to a _specialist_ ’s place.” Noah nodded even though he couldn’t be seen.  
  
“I’ll meet you there.” Stiles hung up.  
  
“fuck.” Noah got up and looked around at the officers, none of them wanting to look at him because they knew what his son-in-law looked like. “Get the body to Deaton’s.”  
  
“The animal clinic… boss, don’t you think….” One of the new probies asked.  
  
“Get. Him. To. Deaton’s.” Noah let his eyes go crimson, giving the full force of his alpha voice and eyes to the probie who nodded frantically and scrambled to get transportation arranged. The body was wet, the smells muted, but Noah could smell it. The unmistakable scene of Liam, he’d gotten used to that smell in his house. Liam was pack. And if someone violated that they were going to pay before the day was out. He walked back through the rain, answering questions and signing off on things till he reached his cruiser and got in. He needed answers, and he needed them now.  
  
The drive normally would have calmed him down, but today, his nerves were already shot. He got to Deaton’s while they were unloading Liam’s corpse into the back exam room and with a glance the other officers knew that they were to leave. He sat down in the nearest chair, breathing in the scent of dried herbs, wet fur, and the forest that clung to Deaton from his magic.  
  
“Sheriff.” Deaton nodded. Looking over Liam and frowning. “I assume I was called in because of this being a supernatural death?”  
  
“Liam’s alive at home with Stiles.”  
  
“Curious.” Deaton nodded, examining the boy in front of him with fresh eyes.  
  
“But I can smell him. That’s Liam there. Everything in me is saying he’s there he’s dead… but I can feel him, alive and well in the pack.” He looked hard at Liam’s body.  
  
“It is quite unusual.” Deaton nodded as he walked around the body. “Where was he found?”  
  
“Middle of the street market. Next to the pop up booth for the street phones.”  
  
“Corner of Oak?” Deaton glanced up.  
  
“Yeah. Two foot from the corner…”  
  
“Now that is interesting. I detected a surge in the currents by there. It was like a massive ripple of power this morning… little over an hour ago…”  
  
“That’s right around the time when he fell out of the sky.”  
  
“The… sky?” Deaton frowned now.  
  
“Yeah, there were impact signs all around him, he fell, from a great height. High enough he cracked the pavement.”  
  
“An yet… not a mark on our dead werewolf… I am assuming he smells of wolf?”  
  
“Yeah. I can smell it on him.” Noah nodded.  
  
“I may have to cut him open to find out what he is… he may be a doppelgänger or something worse…” Deaton paused. “Do I have permission Alpha?”  
  
“Yes.” Noah nodded, and Deaton turned to get his scalpels. He turned and put the cold steal to Liam’s skin, he was about to make the first incision when a hand shot out of no where and caught his wrist, lifting his hand up and away from Liam’s chest. All eyes in the room went to the pale hand with the black bands tattooed into the flesh leaving blanks for runes that dotted all over the hand and arm before turning to Stiles.  
  
“I did have permission.” Deaton looked at Stiles carefully.  
  
“He’s still in there.” Stiles pointed to the body.  
  
“What?” Noah stood up, Liam coming in the room next and it unnerved him to see his beta still alive.  
  
“I felt it as soon as we got near the building. He’s alive in there.”  
  
“There’s no pulse…” Deaton observed.  
  
“There doesn’t need to be.” Stiles looked at the body, something unspoken warring on his face as he looked at it.  
  
“What are you saying?” Noah breathed quietly.  
  
“I’m saying that looks like Liam… smells like Liam… feels like Liam… and just the same I know it’s not Liam, not _my_ Liam… but I also know that he’s still very much alive in there. My magic is screaming at me to wake him up.”  
  
“Stiles… Necromancy…”  
  
“Not Necromancy…” Stiles shook his head, biting his nails as he walked around the body, trails of magic only he could see, like purple smoke prodding at the body till he stopped and looked at it.  
  
“What then?” Deaton asked curiously.  
  
“Technomancy.”  
  
“I’m sorry… what?” Noah stepped closer.  
  
“I’m saying, that despite looking flesh and blood… this is a machine.”  
  
“That’s not…” The lights began to flicker, and Deaton looked around, the magic in the room began to flash various colors as the room trembled and shook.  
  
“Earthquake?” Noah looked around, backing away from the walls.  
  
“No… this is like this morning when _he_ feel into our lives.” Deaton nodded to Liam’s double.  
  
“Something else is coming…” Stiles nodded.  
  
Across town a crack of thunder and a burst of light were the only warnings before there was a loud noise.  
  
 ** _THUD CRACK SPLASH_**  
  
A young woman, dressed in a dark shirt and dark jeans had fallen from the sky, landing on a park bench and snapping it as she landed in a deep puddle. Her long hair soon soaked by the rain as she lay there, people reacting much to her as they had the other body this morning. The only difference, other than gender and clothes, she was clutching a piece of paper in her curled hand. A fact mentioned to the police as calls were coming in before being routed to the Sheriff since this seemed to be something for him to investigate.


	2. Territories

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Liam was just the first body to drop, now they have an even more unexpected body, not just because who expects dead bodies to fall from the sky, but because who expects Alison Argent to fall from the sky.

By the time they got to where the body was laying, Liam was mostly just glad it wasn’t a third one of himself. But the look of shock on Stiles’ face as he walked up to find Alison Argent laying there, for all the world dead in a puddle when she’d been dead for years now. Something was seriously wrong. But his eyes were instantly drawn to the other magician in the space. Sitting on the broken bench next to her, his dark grey waist coat buttoned up and his grey shirt under that blending in well as he rung his black leather gloved hands together sat Isaac Lahey, his eyes not looking at Alison but not looking away either.   
  
“It’s not her.” He offered as greeting.   
  
“I’m aware.” Stiles responded, he hadn’t touched her with his magic yet, he ‘d felt Isaac’s magic probing her and he’d kept his distance. There was enough bad blood between the pack and the coven. He didn’t need to add to it. But finding a second body in only a few hours on the same day, and this time someone who was supposed to be dead…   
  
“Not the first?”   
  
“We found a double of Liam this morning.” Stiles supplied, the others falling silent to let the magicians speak.   
  
“Same surge?”   
  
“Yeah.” Stiles nodded.   
  
“Damn it.” Isaac sighed, pulling out a cigarette from his jacket pocket and using magic to light the tip to puff on it. “They both…”   
  
“Machines, yeah.” Stiles nodded.   
  
“Who the fuck is making robots and dropping them from the sky, and making them so fucking real?” Isaac knew it wasn’t Stiles behind this. Not his style.   
  
“I don’t know. If you want… we can take her to Deaton’s….” Deaton’s place was in the middle of a safe space, neutral ground between the various territories that had torn this town apart.   
  
“I’d like that.” Isaac wiped his eyes. He’d been crying since he got here. Since the charms he had tattooed around his heart had let him know that Alison was _alive_ and near. He’d followed that to her corpse. And scanning it had revealed the inhuman nature of the problem. His magic knew her to be Alison. Knew her to be alive… but also knew she was a machine.   
  
And he’d not handled it the best. You don’t often see your fiancé’s corpse more than once in one life time.   
  
“You doing okay?” Stiles offered as his dad called for a wagon to take Alison.   
  
“Are you?” He looked at Stiles, studying him.   
  
“No. I’m not. Between the nature of them and their appearances… it begs questions I don’t have answers to.” Stiles bit his lip. “You call Scott yet?”   
  
“He’s down for the day.” Isaac shook his head. “I called Brett, he said he’d tell Scott when he wakes up later.”   
  
“Always good to know the Master Vampire in town isn’t out of the loop.” Stiles combed his fingers through his hair. He was actually kind of glad that this happened when Scott was supernaturally unavailable. The last thing he wanted was an out of control vampire causing trouble, and a master vampire at that, no he needed Scott quiet and contained. Usually that was Isaac’s job. Manage his boss. But today, just a glance told Stiles, Isaac wasn’t going to be able to do jack shit to keep Scott in line.   
  
That gave them a deadline. They had until sundown to figure out what the hell was happening and have answers ready for when Scott showed up to find out what they had learned while he slept. Stiles sighed heavily.   
  
“At least you have till sundown.” Isaac sighed.   
  
“At least.”   
  
“Why do I feel her soul in that _thing_?” Isaac wiped his eyes again.   
  
“Dunno, but I suspect the same reason I sense Liam in his double.” Stiles shrugged.   
  
“You’re not usually this honest.” Isaac gave a wry smile.   
  
“We had two bodies drop. One in my dad’s territory, one in Scott’s. We don’t know who made them, why, how, or why they’re falling out of the sky. So far all we know is there’s a surge in the currents just before it happens, and that they’re machines. Beyond that…”   
  
“Have you thought about waking one up?” Isaac glanced at Alison’s body.   
  
“Can we go with the one that wasn’t submerged?” Stiles tried his best pleading eyes.   
  
“I don’t think I could take hearing her voice come out of that machine… so if you can stomach it out of the Liam bot…. I’ll agree to that.”   
  
“Thanks.”   
  
“You guys ready?” Noah asked carefully.   
  
“As ready as I can be.” Isaac stood and walked off towards the ambulance.   
  
“He holding it together?” Noah asked Stiles quietly.   
  
“Oh gods no. He’s on edge and tightly wound and he’s likely to snap at any given moment. This is either going to open some really bad wounds or it’s going to open a can of something we can’t ever close. But what I can tell you is, we need to hurry.” Stiles walked off leaving Noah to wonder if anyone had called the Argents after seeing Alison laying there and then Isaac waiting by the body.   
  
It was a short trip to Deaton’s where they now had two bodies laid out before them. Stiles looked at Isaac and he nodded, giving consent, as best he could to whatever Stiles needed to do here to figure out what they were up against. Stiles walked over to Liam’s body and placed his hand over the cold flesh. He closed his eyes and felt. Letting his magic sink deeper and deeper he felt it touch something.   
  
Something cold… something black… something _alive_ with a spark of Liam’s soul. He frowned at it he studied it with his magic. It was where his heart should be. Some sort of rune covered black box. He poked and prodded and slowly ran his magical energies over it till he felt one of the symbols pulse. Whatever else this Liam might have been, he wanted to be awake.   
  
He pushed on that spot with his magic, and felt a program running. Systems started to boot up and the flesh under his hand began to warm up. He jumped back a little to watch as color returned to Liam’s cheeks and he coughed before opening his eyes slowly. His eyes falling on Alison and then frowning as he spotted the other Liam before looking at Stiles with questions forming in his mind that Stiles could almost sense.   
  
“Who are you?” Stiles asked carefully.   
  
“Liam Dunbar Replacement Unit R-417a, please state the reason for violating my terms of service?” Liam glanced at Liam.   
  
“How did we void your tos?”   
  
“Another unit is present and deactivated, as I apparently was. And there is another Liam unit in this room. These are clear violations of tos.”   
  
“I’m sorry for that. We had no way of knowing you were coming…”   
  
“Coming… is this not Beacon Hills?”   
  
“It is.”   
  
“Than I fail to see…”   
  
“But we don’t have replacement units…. I mean what is that, a way of saying you’re a replacement of a robot that was damaged before you?”   
  
“No. I’m a grief adaptation model. My original was lost in the riots a few years back, his parents used the last remaining bio print to have me created to replace their dead son. I’ve been living his life for them since.”   
  
“My parents…. Bought a replica … when I died?” Liam blinked, taking this better than anyone so far.   
  
“Curious… you’re not synthetic, are you?” The Android tilted his head.   
  
“How can you tell?” Liam asked carefully.   
  
“Werewolf senses amplified by being synthetic myself. You’re not my original though. There are distinct dissimilarities. Enough that on a cursory examination I can tell you are not my original, neither are you synthetic.”   
  
“I think we have to have a conversation about where you come from…” Stiles sat down in front of his field of view. “Let’s start with what you can tell us about where you come from.”   
  
“I can try, I’m very confused as to what is going on.” He looked lost as he looked around the room. “Is she okay?” His eyes falling on Alison.   
  
“We don’t know… she seems to be in the same state that you were in.”   
  
“Understandable. She must have gone through the error too.”   
  
“The Error?” Noah asked from the far side of the room.   
  
“I don’t have a word for it. The room was there and then it wasn’t…. and every thing went black…”   
  
“Did you detect any kind of… shock or damage?” Stiles was grasping at straws now.   
  
“There was a surge just before things went black. But I don’t remember hearing the alarms go off more than once… so I’m guessing that’s when I deactivated.”   
  
“Alarms?” Stiles prompted.   
  
“The terrorists have been bombing for days now, I heard the alarms going off but I thought we were safe.” The room went very quiet at that pronouncement.


	3. Another History

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Liam’s android replacement explains the history of grief replacement models.

“It started back in the early 90’s with the invention of android and synthetic life.” Liam licked his lips. “The early models were all circuits and machines. They were clunky and didn’t really portray accurate human movements or actions. But in 1993 the supernatural world was exposed, resulting in a fundamental change in the way everything in our world happened. There was a time in the mid 90’s when there was an attempt at segregation between mundanes and supernaturals. It lasted four bitter years, and in 1999 a young werewolf boy saw a mundane child fall off of a platform while waiting with his parents to ride the mag train. He didn’t hesitate. He jumped, scooped up the child and had just enough time to put the boy back on platform before the mag train came in and killed him.”

He looked down then. “His name was Josh Hale. He’d been raised in a loving pack who had always taken their guardianship over humanity very seriously. As such, he laid his life down for a mundane without a second thought. By the early 2000’s Josh’s law made the segregation and persecution of supernaturals illegally. And that allowed magic users to start entering the tech industries resulting in the production of the first runic core in 2004.”

“What’s a runic core?” Stiles frowned.

“The heart of all grief replacement models. I’m sure you felt it when you searched me with your magic.” Liam tapped his chest and Stiles nodded. “In the start it became a way to download the data of a person into to build a limited ai off of the person and their data. By 2007 it became normal for everyone to fill out the replication data form and later to get scanned mentally and spiritually so that you had a runic core back up of yourself. So that if something happened, you’re mind and soul could be copied and continue on your life.” Liam looked down.

“Eventually one of the leading companies that took that information was Graves Industries. They began building more and more life like models till eventually they got to our generation.” He gestured to himself and Alison who was still unresponsive. “It was little work to replicate our bodies after our originals died, and then implant our prepared runic core into the model so that when we awoke in our own beds, we were ourselves. We’re aware of what we are. But we’re aware of who we are and were.”

“You said something about terrorists?” Noah crossed his arms.

“Right… the Right to Die gained traction with fringe groups and the overly religious. By 2009 they had moved from a grass roots movement to an actual political party. But when the 2012 elections rolled around, they tried to run a candidate but he lost. They didn’t take it very well. They bombed the white house.”

“Shit.” The Liam from this world walked across the room.

“They quickly began bombing any facility that would process models and started trying to destroy any facility that had any of the parts for our survival. Eventually they started attacking data centers…”

“Why would…” Deaton frowned.

“They wanted a list of all of you, didn’t they.” Stiles cut across him.

“Yes.” Liam nodded. “They used that to attack any models they could indentify on the street. That’s why my parents and Alison’s moved to the towers.”

“The towers?” Noah asked.

“Yes. They were built in early 2000. They’re a series of interconnected high rises and sky scrapers that form a second internal city. My family moved there shortly after my original died. I set up my room exactly how I had it when I was him.” Liam gave a sad smile.

“What happened to me… him…?” Liam asked quietly.

“Car wreck. He was going to pick up his girlfriend and someone plowed into his car and killed him on impact…” His eyes went distant.

“You remember it…?” Stiles studied him.

“If the original is intact enough… they do a post scan… after… to recover as many memories from between the last scan to the moment of death…” He wiped a tear away.

“You felt it… didn’t you.” Stiles gaped at him.

“I remember what it was like to die, to feel myself giving up and giving in… and the last thing I remember before I woke up in this… was stepping into the light… I… I saw some of what exists on the other side.” He looked down.

“it’s okay.” Stiles hugged him and could feel how much like his Liam he was but there was enough of a difference that he could clearly tell who was who.

“I don’t get why you smell of wolf though.” Isaac tilted his head.

“My original was a werewolf. He’d been turned his freshman year of high school by the alpha Scott McCall.”

“Scott was a werewolf in your world?”

“Is he not here?”

“No… he’s…” Noah started.

“He’s a vampire here.” Isaac answered for him.

“And you? Are you not a werewolf too?” Isaac blinked at him.

“No… why would I… did Scott turn me too?”

“No, Derek Hale turned you when he became the alpha after his killed his Uncle Peter.”

“Derek Hale… was an alpha…?” Stiles frowned, thinking about how the Hales were an old family but Derek wasn’t an alpha, he was a collage professor who had helped create the territorial lines. “I can’t imagine him a werewolf let alone an alpha.”

“He burned out that spark saving his sister from dying.” Liam shook his head.

“That’s insane to even think about.” Isaac frowned. “And her?” He gestured to Alison.

“She was dating Scott till he came out as a werewolf and they broke up after her mother died. And then she died figuring out a way to kill the oni.”

“Wait… there’s not a way to kill Oni…” Isaac frowned harder.

“Sure silver kills them.”

“Interesting to know.” Stiles nodded.

“Anyways, she died proving her point, after she’d just started to illicit dating Isaac, and her father had a model created to help his grief. Not long after he ended up marrying Scott’s mother and Scott and Alison became siblings.”

“That’s not how any of that played out here…” Isaac frowned. “Alison was a human who fell in love with Scott and while I had feelings for her… we never…” He looked away.

“How did she pass here?” Liam tilted his head, studying Isaac.

“She was going to leave him…” Isaac looked at Alison’s model. “She was going to leave Scott for me… we… we were going to be happy…” He was crying now. “And her father figured it out and decided the only way for us to get away was if he killed Scott… so he tried to hunt him, and Alison… Alison got between them and took the stake meant for Scott.” He curled in on himself as he spoke.

“An without models you’ve been alone with your grief since then.” Liam nodded.

“So you’re from another universe… h… how do we send you back?” Isaac wiped his tears away.

“Unknown. We did not know for sure that multiverse theory was correct.” Liam shrugged.

“And we’ve not got spells for this…” Stiles shook his head.

“Then we will likely never return home.” Liam looked down at his feet.

“Can’t we do anything for him?” Liam squeezed Stiles’ shoulder.

“I’m not sure how we’d even go about that…” Stiles bit his lip, his eyes suddenly moving to study the room.

“What is it?” Noah asked.

“Something’s coming through… like them…” The magic in the room was going insane, while across town there was another loud crack and a body hit the pavement in a wet thud. Steam pouring off of his nude form as he curled in on himself only to slowly uncurl as his burned flesh healed around him, he looked around, confused at how he got outside before he dragged himself to a nearby payphone. He tried to remember the numbers that would hack the phone and let him make the call for free before he dialed a number he knew by heart.

Across town Stiles’ phone buzzed and he answered. “Hello?”

“stiles… I… I don’t know how I fell or where I am…”

“Scott…” He put it on speaker phone.

“Yeah… I was taking a shower and somehow I ended up on fire in some park… what the fuck is going on… is this the Wild Hunt again?” Scott spit up some blood.

“Hang on… we’ll be there soon.” He nodded to Isaac and his dad, rushing to trying to find this version of Scott who had apparently fallen from the sky burning from the trip between worlds.


	4. A wolf in a strange land

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Scott isn’t sure where he is or what’s going on but he’s aware that he’s all alone.

Huddling in on himself Scott shivered. Why did burning always make him feel cold after he healed? He shivered harder as he listened for the Jeep but didn’t hear it. Instead he smelled confusing smells. He smelled wolves but he also smelled magic and then he caught scent of Stiles and Isaac. He stood up, covering himself and hunched over when they got close enough to spot him.   
  
“You okay?” Stiles offered him a robe.   
  
“thank you.” Scott slipped into it and wrapped it around himself. “I don’t know what happened… where are the towers?”   
  
“On your world.” Isaac stepped up and Scott frowned sniffing the air.   
  
“You’re not a werewolf.”   
  
“Nope.”   
  
“And your dad is.” Scott looked at Noah where he stood.   
  
“Yep.” Stiles nodded.   
  
“This where Liam and Alison vanished to?”   
  
“Got it in one.” Stiles nodded, walking his friend to the car and getting him settled in before driving him to the clinic where he padded in to see Liam sitting there talking with another Liam, the two had gotten to discussing things about their lives and stopped when they noticed the others.   
  
“You found us?” Liam blushed.   
  
“Yeah, I just wish I knew how to get back.” Scott hugged him and looked over at Alison. “Offline or dead?”   
  
“Offline. We haven’t reactivated her.”   
  
“Probably best to wait on that…” Scott shivered again.   
  
“Why’s that?” Stiles arched an eyebrow.   
  
“I don’t want to have to tell her her family died. We thought she died too in the bombing…”   
  
“There was more?” Liam bit his lip.   
  
“The west tower was coming down, I heard it on the feed while I was in the shower. I had shut off the shower to hear better and… then fell here.”   
  
“shit.” Liam worried his lips harder.   
  
“But you guys aren’t the only disappearances. It’s been weird all day. People vanishing. Buildings collapsing… and then there’s the sky.” Scott shook his head.   
  
“What happened to the sky?” Stiles was trying to figure out what happened.   
  
“At a guess.” A voice from behind them made them all turn to look at Scott who was standing there wearing some sort of magical space armor. “But, did your sky turn blood red, and get like black lightning striking everywhere every little bit?”   
  
“Yeah… how’d you…?” Scott sniffed the air. “You’re not a wolf.”   
  
“Spot on. I’m not a werewolf. But the sniffing thing says _you_ are. And if had to guess from this reality’s lack of a red sky, you’re from the same world those two came from?” He pointed to Liam and Alison.   
  
“Yeah…”   
  
“And you are?” Stiles crossed his arms.   
  
“Scott McCall.” He smiled.   
  
“You don’t say.” Stiles narrowed his eyes. “But you’re not ours because he’s a vampire and still asleep for a bit, and your tech isn’t from around here.”   
  
“Nope. Not even close.” He looked around and shook his head.   
  
“So where are you from?”   
  
“A world you haven’t heard of. I’m not native to this part of the multiverse.” Scott opened the gauntlet on his wrist and started scanning. “Well you’re in luck.”   
  
“Why, because you’re not from our corner of the multiverse?”   
  
“Naw, I’m not a threat. No, you’re in luck because your anchor’s not gone.”   
  
“This is getting confusing.” Isaac held his head.   
  
“Here this might help.” Scott tapped his chest and a node on the breast plate of his armor glowed and projected a map of worlds moving along lines of energy in a vast space. “This is a map of your local multiverse. We’re here…” He pointed to a world in the lower left hand corner of the oval projection. “We dubbed this place Vamps and Wolves. This world has a major vampire and werewolf population. You don’t get that in most of the worlds. I think it has something to do with all the magic around here…”   
  
“And us?” The other Scott asked as he looked at the projections.   
  
“You’re from here.” He pointed to a red looking earth not too far from the one they were on.   
  
“Why’s it red?” Liam asked moving on the table to face the display better.   
  
“Well that’s because someone got the bright idea to end your anchor… or I suppose a better term is someone ended your hub.” He scrolled through till he zoomed in on a larger darker red earth. “This is Replicants hub world. All realities where replicants are made of people are worlds that spawned off of that hub world. Your world is designated Grief Models. The replicants are only used to replaced loved ones who have died in tragic losses. It helps the families grieve and heal. Not a bad use of it. But you’ve seen what’s happening to your world.”   
  
“The chaos with the terrorists…?” Liam bit his lip.   
  
“That too. But no. I was talking about the red skies. That’s a symptom of your hub being destroyed.” He gestured to their red hub. “We don’t know who, but we have theories… but…” He shrugged.   
  
“Can you take us home?” Scott frowned.   
  
“I…” He sighed.   
  
“Their world is dying. Isn’t it.” Stiles crossed his arms.   
  
“Yeah.” Scott nodded. “When the hub finally dies, every reality that’s a ripple out from it, will die and shred. The hub is already 90-94% shredded and it’s causing your world to bleed out.”   
  
“That’s how we ended up here…” Scott bit his lip and hugged Liam, needing something to ground him.   
  
“Yeah… when you’re reality started to shred… it ejected you out, bleeding you out to the nearest world. You guys happened to get lucky and you landed here.”   
  
“And the ones who didn’t get lucky?”   
  
“Following the lay lines… the unluck ones landed here.” He pointed to another red world. “We call it rented. Because of what’s going on there.”   
  
“What’s going on there?” Scott looked more worried.   
  
“People are being harvested.”


	5. Deep End of the Hole

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Things get deeper for our young heroes.

“What do you mean harvested?” Stiles stood up straighter.

“The people we’re fighting… they’re using that world for harvesting humans and testing their robotizing tech. Turning people into androids that they can rent and sell in tech brothels. While you’re world…” He looked to Scott and Liam. “… used the tech to make a way to grieve and heal… most worlds used it to build sex bots. And a lot of the times it’s basically enslaving androids for sex and darker things. But…” He sighed. “Some worlds like that one… they’re harvesting the people and erasing people’s memories of them being human so they can rent their friends and family and fuck their brains out.”

“Why the fuck would they do that?!” Liam was starting to have a panic attack.

“Because they see you as less than human… and thus lacking rights.”

“That’s…” He huddled in on himself and his Scott rubbed his back.

“Yeah. That’s why we’re not big fans of what they’re doing. So we’re fighting back trying to get some local ground for this sector.”

“What about our hub?” Stiles bit his lip.

“You’re a lucky universe.” He moved over and zoomed in. “You lay on two lay lines. Which means somewhere in the life of the Lobo Hub World and the Logos Hub World, events happened at the same time that led to this world. Which is interesting. But it means that both of those worlds would have to be wiped out to wipe you out. So you’re safe from the weapon that was used on the Replicants Hub World.”

“Well that’s nice… but we’re not safe from the harvesting, are we?”

“No. You’re basically waiting for someone to figure out where the tablet is.”

“What tablet?” Isaac sat up straighter.

“This area…” He gestured on the map. “They seeded most of these worlds with at least the concept of the tablet, if not an actual tablet.” They looked at him like he’d grown a second head. “Right…” He tapped his chest again and it displayed a tablet. “While it looks like a normal tablet… it has the ability to effect and change the very fabric of reality. Change people’s bodies, minds, souls, pasts… everything. They seed these into worlds and until someone uses it at some point in that universe they can’t find that reality.”

“How’d they seed them in?” Isaac frowned.

“They launch them out across the multiverse looking for gravity sites. Hoping to get lucky. After that until someone finds and uses the tablet… they can’t locate the reality. Once they do have it located… they start charting and seeding.”

“And you’d know if someone had found the tablet here?” Stiles was already working on a locator spell.

“Yeah.” Scott tapped his chest again and a display of their earth showed up with a scan going over it. “No signal so the tablet isn’t on and isn’t being used. And there’s no trace of an activation so it’s not a problem yet.”

“But literally anyone could just pick it up and turn it on…”

“Yeah… unless this universe has a guardian.” They blinked at him. “Some universes get a guardian sent with the tablet. We’ve yet to see a real pattern to it. Control hasn’t figured it out either.”

“Control?” Noah’s ears perked up.

“Yeah, it’s what we call the brain trust that runs things at our base.” Scott smiled. “I’m just a grunt. I scout the worlds, and see who I can rescue when a world gets shredded.”

“You’re here to rescue us?” The other Scott looked hopeful.

“Yep. And give you a choice. You can stay here, you can go home, or I can take you back to base and you can live out your life how you want.”

“If we stay here?” Liam looked at his double.

“Than you’ll have to think of a cover story. I don’t think this world is ready for androids.”

“It’s already going to be a trip to explain them falling from the skies.” Noah sighed.

“And if we go home?” Scott bit his lip.

“Then you risk falling in another reality before the shredding is done, or you end up living just long enough to watch your world die…”

“Is it painful?” Scott searched his double’s eyes.

“Yeah. It’s a bad way to go.”

“Scott…” Liam touched his alpha’s arm.

“I can’t leave her there…” Scott shook his head.

“We can scout your world, round up any survivors and give them a choice of staying or going with us… once we leave this reality though we’re likely going to avoid coming back here… the more survivors we have the less likely any cover story is going to detract attention from you.”

“Where will you take them if they do go with you?” Isaac glanced at Alison.

“Probably to Control or one of the base worlds… see if they want as normal a life as we can give them or if they want to serve in the liberation.”

“I…” Scott looked at Liam.

“We’ll go look for survivors. Can we leave Alison here…?” Liam asked politely.

“So long as you come back to get her… I don’t suspect her staying here tonight will be great…” Isaac glanced at Stiles.

“Our Scott’s not the most… stable version of you.” Stiles sighed.

“He lost his Alison too?” Scott looked between them.

“You’d be surprised how often that happens. She’s an incarnate. They tend to die when they achieve their purpose.”

“Doesn’t mean I have to like it.” Scott sighed.

“She’s an incarnate in every reality?” Isaac frowned.

“About 90% of the ones I’ve scouted she’s either an incarnate, never born, or she’s human. Granted there’s one I know of where she’s a dude.”

“I can’t picture her as a guy.” Isaac smiled softly.

“Oh I can… you didn’t get the right hook she punched me with Senior year.” Stiles rubbed his jaw.

“True enough.” Isaac shrugged.

“One question though about the transition…” Liam bit his lip. “My core shut down when I came here…”

“Oh that’s because you were exposed to an untemper schism when the fabric of reality tore. That’s nasty as fuck to travel through. No, my vortex manipulator will get us there just fine. You didn’t even notice my arrival, did you?”

“He’s right, there wasn’t a surge in magic when he arrived…” Stiles felt his magic reach out into the wards and double check.

“Wouldn’t be very stealthy if I announced I was here with a big display would it?” Scott grinned. “Anyways… Decide who’s going, I’ll set up a transfer point.”

“Are you coming back here?” Isaac bit his lip.

“Have to pick her up…” Scott nodded to Alison. “And I figure it’ll take you guys to restart her.” Scott nodded before heading out back of the clinic. Leaving them to talk amongst themselves.

“I’m going.” Scott nodded.

“Me too.” Liam agreed.

“We should probably go too.” Stiles sighed looking at Isaac.

“I was thinking the same thing.”

“And why should you two go?” Noah crossed his arms.

“New magic, helping people, chance of a life time, and we might be able to find people faster with magic on our side.” Stiles counted off.

“And if your magic doesn’t work there?” Noah glared.

“Than we’re extra hands to get everyone to the extraction point.” Stiles glared back at his dad.

“I’m going with you.” Noah stood his ground.

“Fine.” Stiles said after a while.

“You’re not going to fight me on this?”

“We don’t have time. Their universe is dying. We need to get who we can. Even if we’re just bringing them here till they can make the transfer to where ever he’s taking them. At least we can get them safe.”

“Then let’s go.” Noah gestured.

“Stiles…” Deaton glanced at him.

“I find anything we’ll bring it back. You never know, they might have magic we don’t or versions of spells.”

“Share if you can.” Deaton nodded and the five of them headed out, leaving Deaton to watch over Alison’s body till their return.


End file.
